


Someone to Stay

by Living_Pretty



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but also hurt/comfort?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19213024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Pretty/pseuds/Living_Pretty
Summary: You've been fighting the memory all on your own,Nothing washes, nothing growsI know how it feels being by yourself in the rainWe all need someone to stay





	Someone to Stay

_ Boswellia _ _ , when boiled applied topically, can help to ease swelling in joints in early stage victims. Was tried and proved successful on patient 038, Markel Timms, age four. Advanced symptoms have slowed but are still _

Elise’s hand skittered across her parchment as she let out a thunderous sneeze. The nib of her quill punctured the thick grain, right in the middle of the carefully sketched diagram she’d made, black ink pooling over the spidery roots of the Boswellia plant. She let out a groan and laid her cheek against the thick book open in front of her, full of pages and pages of notes made in a neat and ordered hand. She glared at the splotch of ink slowly seeping into the delicate lines she’d agonized over. 

“That’s it,” she muttered, her voice hoarse from hours of silence, “I quit. He hasn’t even been back from the palace in weeks, I don’t know why I even bother with these notes.” She cracked open one eye but Brundle curled up on the faded and sagging armchair in the corner of Julian’s office, didn’t even twitch. “You’re supposed to talk me out of it, Brundle,” said Elise, pushing herself up laboriously and wincing as a flash of pain raced up from her spine into her head, “You’re supposed to tell me that this is all worth it,” she continued, her eyes shut tight against the throbbing ache, “and that Julian is going to come bursting in here with that mad gleam in his eye announcing he and the rest of those geniuses up in the palace have cured it.”

At the mention of her master, Brundle finally lifted her head and looked balefully at the door before turning her watering and reproachful eye back to Elise. 

“I know,” she sighed, “I miss him too.” She let her hand fall to her neck and ran her thumb over the cool ceramic beads resting at the base of her throat, feeling the familiar weave of the necklace’s red cord beneath her fingers. Her stomach clenched and she dropped her hand away, getting to her feet with a scowl and sweeping the pile of papers in front of her into a hasty stack. A swoop of vertigo clutched her and she paused, bracing her fingers against the desk and swaying. She’d been hunched over the desk for hours, perusing stacks and stacks of books Julian had brought back from the palace library, and the tiny print and low light was resulting in a truly remarkable headache. She screwed up her eyes against the rush of nausea clutching her stomach, shivering as goosebumps erupted across her arms. 

A warm wet nose snuffled against her palm and Elise looked down, smiling weakly as Brundle pressed her wrinkled head against her fingers. She scratched at Brundle’s head and waited for the dizziness to subside. When it didn’t, she took a careful step over towards the wash basin shoved into the other corner. She’d insisted they keep it back there after Julian had spent several nights in a row in the office, and his untidy scruff had nearly driven her to madness. Next to his razor was her dried sprig of fireweed standing upright in a now empty leech bottle. It was the same sprig she’d carried with her everywhere, from the last time she and Calix had raced to the banks of the Shellborough River. Before it had been in a small glass vase in the kitchen windowsill, next to Asra’s potted succulents. She bit her lip and touched one of the shriveled petals.

 

She hadn’t been back to the shop much recently. She’d cut down the hours now that she was with Julian in his clinic, and the apartment above felt emptier than ever without Asra and Faust. Now, even his warm smell of cardamom and something softer that was so inexplicably  _ Asra  _ had begun to fade, and as it did she felt like something in her was fading too. She clenched her jaw tight and balled up her fists until her nails dug into her palms, forcing back the prickling at the corner of her eyes. The petal she’d been touch broke off and fluttered down into the basin.

She would never admit it, but she felt Asra’s absence heavier than she’d ever felt anything before. It was even worse than the homesickness she’d felt in her first few weeks in Vesuvia, where she’d cried every time she looked up to orient herself with the North Mountain, and couldn’t find its jagged peak. Even now, after living in the city for six years, she felt just as disoriented as when she first arrived. 

Asra had been her new mountain. He’d encouraged her in her magic lessons with Cassandra, he’d taken her hand and led her across narrow bridges, through the twisting branches of the forest, and boosted her up over chalky walls so the two of them could look down into the private gardens of the temples and feel the magnolia petals beneath their grubby fingers. He’d taken her to see the ocean and held her fast as she learned to float, letting the water fill her ears, the waves caress her skin. Asra’s hand, firm in hers, had been the only thing keeping her from drifting off. Now, he was gone and she had nothing to hold onto. 

The dull ache in her head mounted and her stomach twisted again, the pain of it so sudden and violent it made her stagger, sucking in a harsh breath between her teeth. She could feel something hot and choking at the back of her throat and she fumbled for the empty basin. She fell against the wash table, knocking Julian’s razor, the leech bottle, and the mirror propped behind the basin to the floor. The sound of shattering glass mingled with Brundle’s low whine but Elise didn’t lift her head. She stared down into the basin with her chest heaving. The lamp flickering dully on the desk sent little flickers of flame skittering across the walls, illuminating the dark red staining the white enameled surface. The tang of copper filled her mouth.

Her heart pounded in her throat, goosebumps peppering her arms and the back of her neck as her arms began to shake. 

_ No, no, no, no _ , 

She’d been feeling like this for weeks now. Sluggish, itchy eyes, and a dull ache at the back of her head. She’d been feeling like this ever since she’d gotten back from her parent’s house. She’d blamed her symptoms on the long journey. It was stress, it was overwork, it was grief at Cassandra’s death. It was the frustration and sadness and anger that welled up in her chest every time she thought about her last fight with Asra and him storming out. It was the ever-growing sense of desperation that both she and Julian felt with every new patient admitted to the clinic. It wasn’t, it  _ wasn’t,  _

The pain came to a dizzying peak between her ears and she crumpled, her knees giving out, her forehead clipping the lip of the washbasin and fresh, sharp pain clawing its way across her skull. Brundle pressed herself against Elise’s side as she struggled to sit up, reaching one trembling hand out to where the shining fragments of the shattered mirror littered the warped floorboards. 

_ It’s nothing, it’s nothing, I just need rest it’s nothing, it’s not _ ,

Panic made her fingers clumsy and her finger slipped along the jagged edge of the mirror, but that sharp stinging was nothing compared to the fear twisting her stomach as she raised the glittering sliver of the mirror up to her face. Her hand shook so badly that her own reflection darted in and out of focus, the blood from her finger staining the edge and she used her uninjured hand to stabilize it, bringing it up to her face, trying to calm her panicked breaths and keep the mirror from fogging. 

She took several moments to focus on her trembling reflection. All she could see were flashes. A glimpse of lank and tangled hair. Another flash of sunken cheeks, more pallid than she’d ever seen them before, even in the dead of the dark winters from home. Then finally, one heavy-lidded eye, the whites a dull, bloody red.

 

Elise surged upwards with a gasp, her heart beating shallow in her chest and her breath sticking in her throat.

“Elise?”

_ Red, red on her hands, red sinking into the floor,  _

“Elise, darling are you alright?”

_ Red in the mirror, red dripping from her lips, red cord tight around her neck,  _

Cool hands touched her cheek and she jerked away, silken sheets tangling around her legs. Her skin burned and the fine nightgown Nadia had lent her stuck to her heaving chest. Right, Nadia, the palace. Nadia and the palace and the masquerade and Julian. Julian there, alive, sweeping her across the marble floors and up onto the table tops, not thrashing at the end of a rope. Not limp and unmoving on the table with Valdemar poised above him, scalpel already pressing against his chest, drawing a thin line of blood. Julian, his face painted red by the bloody light of the Devil’s throne room, holding her upright, his magic and Asra’s and Nadia’s all swirling under her skin.  

“Elise, Elise darling please say something,”

She looked up into a moonlight face, made monochrome by the silvery light. Monochrome, except for the single red eye. She touched his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw with her thumb,

“Julian,” Her voice caught in her throat, the relief settling heavily on her shoulders, “Julian, I,” She felt his hands again, his skin cool against hers as he cupped her cheek, and she gripped his wrist tight, shivering.

“You’re burning up,” he murmured, his brows knitting, “Here let me,” he threw back the covers, attempting to rise but she caught his hand, her trembling fingers tight around his wrist.

“Wait!” A dull ache pounded behind her temples and the thought of him leaving spurred it to new heights. “Don’t! The plague, the red, I-I saw,”

Pressure mounted behind her eyes and she squeezed them shut, trying to hold onto the details of the dream but with every passing second the pain mounted and the images before her faded, blurring out into nothing but the residual dread clutching at her stomach, and the image of her own eye bloodied and red, its reflection trembling in the blood smeared mirror fragment. She pressed her free hand against her eyes and shuddered.

“It’s alright,” Julian’s voice was low and soothing in her ear as he settled down onto the mattress in front of her, his fingers blessedly cool against her feverish skin as he brushed back the hair sticking to her sweating forehead, “it’s over. We stopped it. The plague, Lucio, the Devil, all of it.” 

She took a deep breath, letting her lungs expand, keeping Julian’s hand tight in hers as she breathed deeply and evenly. Gradually, the pain in her head lessened and the tension in her shoulders and jaw relaxed. She stayed still for a moment longer, her eyes closed, waiting until she was sure that the memories had passed entirely. Once they had, she opened her eyes and looked up into Julian’s pinched and worried face.

“I’m alright,” she said, letting her hand rest on his bare chest, feeling the steady pulse of his heart under her palm, “just a nightmare.”

“ _ Just  _ a nightmare?” Julian laid his hand across her forehead, trailing it down to cup her cheek and his eyebrows furrowed, “I’ve never heard of a nightmare causing a fever.” 

“Mine do,” she shrugged, turning her head to kiss the palm of his hand still curled around her cheekbone, “But that’s gone too. Don’t be such a worrywart. I’m fine now.”

With every steady beat of his heart under her palm, she could feel her own returning to its normal rhythm but Julian didn’t look convinced. His brows were still drawn low and his lips were pursed as he pulled her hand away from his chest, laying his fingertips against her pulse, the wrinkle between his eyebrows deepening.

“Julian,” she said, her voice dancing between a warning and a whine, “I’m  _ fine _ ,”

“I would feel better if we found something for your fever,” he said, looking up from her hand into her face. She could see in the serious set of his eyebrows and quirk to his lips that he had slipped fully into ‘Doctor Mode’, “perhaps down in the kitchen they have some Elderflower or white willow bark we could make into a tea, or I know Pasha has some catnip growing in her garden, I could go get some of that, track down some turmeric maybe, boil that and then,”

“Fine!” She threw back the covers and crawled towards the edge of the enormous bed with all the dignity of a newly born kitten, “We’ll go see if Nadia has any white willow bark squirreled away in her cupboards. I don’t know why she would, it tastes like feet!”

Julian grinned, “You must be feeling better already. I’ll admit, it is a little,” he cleared his throat as she glowered at him over her shoulder, “ _ earthy _ but it does bring down fevers remarkably fast.”

“I don’t  _ have  _ a fever,” she muttered, pushing herself up off the bed. The marble floor was cold against her bare feet, and still gritty with the dark purple sand they’d brought back from the magician’s realm. She kicked aside the ragged remains of her once spectacular dress and winced as a sulfurous waft of smoke and blood from the devil’s throne room crept up to her nose. Her stomach churned uncomfortably again.

“Maybe not,” said Julian, reaching out and threading his hand in hers, “but I still think a cup of tea is in order,” he grinned again and Elise felt part of her black mood lift and her own lips twitched in a smile in spite of herself, “doctor’s orders.”

 

Julian led the way through the dark hallways. Apparently, his recovered memories went so far as to improve his familiarity with the twisting marble halls and arches which all looked the same to Elise, despite her time as Nadia’s guest.

“You don’t think the kitchen will be locked?” She asked as he gently tugged her down a narrow flight of stairs. At the end, she could already see a soft rosy glow of a fire warming the dark grey stones.

“I doubt it,” said Julian without looking back, “Asra and I used to sneak in here all the time when we were peckish, back when we were still studying the plague. The head cook was quite fond of us,” he shot another winning smile over his shoulder, “used to save us the most wonderful little cakes.”

Elise tried for a smile again, but it felt forced even to her. Julian’s smile faded slightly and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze before pushing open a heavy oak door. 

The kitchen was empty, which wasn’t a surprise considering it was half-past three in the morning, but the enormous hearth still had a bed of glowing rosy coals which Julian crossed over to, ducking under the low beams hung with shining copper pots and pans. He stirred up the fire, fanning the embers into a tiny flame before tossing a log onto it while Elise stood by an enormously broad and long table hunkered low against the swept stone floor, looking around the place with interest. Strings of herbs and onions hung down from the ceiling as well and the cupboards were full of unfamiliar and exotic spices as she drifted closer to take a look, picking up the jars and packets and examining the labels.

“All this,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Julian who was pulling an enormous kettle down from a rack near the stove, “and they still can’t manage to make Nadia spiced swordfish?”

“Sometimes travel times can affect spices potency,” he said, hanging the kettle over the low flickering flame, “Prakra isn’t exactly just around the river bend, here,”

He pulled out a three-legged stool from under the low table, using the dishrag left on it to sweep some crumbs off of the tabletop.

“You rest,” he said, “I’ll see if I can’t find some chamomile.”

Elise smiled and walked over to him, hopping up onto the table and using the stool as a footrest, letting her elbows rest on her knees as she looked up at him. He grinned back, pressing a swift kiss to her forehead before looking up at the rafters, his long fingers trailing over the various drying herbs.

“You know this isn’t really necessary,” she said as he walked down the length of the table, squinting up at the hanging plants, “I told you, I’m fine. We could just go back to bed.”

"And abandon my search?” He twisted around to face her with wide eyes, “Perish the thought, my dear! I promised you tea and so tea you shall have.”

Elise laughed and Julian’s face lit up with a grin of his own. He snapped off a few twigs of dried chamomile and came back to her, holding them aloft as if they were a bouquet of roses. 

“As promised,” he said softly, his lips slowly curling in a smile.

Elise smirked, “A bit different from the last flower you offered me. Much less deadly. Am I to just admire it or am I meant to drink it?”

“In due time,” he plucked the dried flowers back from her and dropped them into the simmering kettle. She moved her feet from the stool and he dropped onto it in front of her, struggling to fold his long legs under the low table. Elise smiled down at him and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead so she could see both of his eyes clearly, letting her hand linger there. He leaned into her touch, the tip of his nose brushing the inside of her wrist, his lips brushing the heel of her palm

“Thank you, Julian,” she murmured, “I’m sorry I woke you. It’s been a hell of a week, we should both be sleeping.”

“No need to apologize, love. Do,” he paused, bringing his hand up to hers, running his thumb over her knuckles, “do you want to talk about it? Your dream?”

Elise shook her head, “There’s nothing really to talk about. It’s already gone. There was something with the plague. I think...I think it was from before, before I,”

The skin around Julian’s eyes grew taught and she slid down off the table, settling into his lap instead, laying her head in the hollow where his shoulder met his neck. She felt some of the tension in him ease as he wound his arms around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head, his sigh stirring her hair.

“I told you,” she said, letting her eyes flutter shut as she listened to the steady thudding of his heart, “it’s not important. I get nightmares like this a lot. They never last, just,” she drew back and looked up at him, furrowing her brows as she touched the skin under his red eye, “just the feelings do, not the actual dream itself. Besides,” she smiled, “I woke up missing you, and here you are.”

Julian smiled softly and leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers, his arms still around her waist. His voice was low, barely audible over the crackling fire. 

“And here I’ll stay.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick fic I'm posting for some friends! Possibly the first chapter into a much MUCH longer fic if I don't get distracted lol.


End file.
